"Well," said Sir Oliver, looking straight before him. "Sally—my brother insists on calling her Sally—appears to have her head fixed well on her shoulders: she looks—as you must not forget to look— straight between the horse's ears. But your young bride is apt to be the greatest prude in the world. And Dicky, you see—"
Her hand weighed on the rein and brought the mare to a halt.
"Tell me about Dicky?"
"About Dicky?" he repeated.
"About his mother, then."
"She is dead," he answered, staring at the mare's glossy shoulder and smoothing it. His brows were bent in a frown.
"Yes . . . he told me that, in the coach, on our way from Port Nassau. It was the first thing he told me when he awoke. We had been rolling along the beach for hours in the dark; and I remember how, almost at the end of the beach, it grew light inside the coach and he opened his eyes. . . ."
She did not relate that the child had awaked in her arms.
"It was the first thing Dicky told me," she repeated; "and the only thing about—her. I think it must be the only thing he knows about her."
"Probably; for she died when he was born and—well, as the child grew up, it was not easy to explain to him. Other folks, no doubt—the servants and suchlike—were either afraid to tell or left it to me as my business. And I am an indolent parent." He paused and added, "To be quite honest, I dare say I distasted the job and shirked it."